


Afterimage

by saellys



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Coping, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Missing Scene, Post-Jedha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 05:34:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8956420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saellys/pseuds/saellys
Summary: “An amateur poet,” Baze mutters when Bodhi does not continue. Bodhi shakes his head. “My mother was.” She never published, but she used to read in the smallest, dimmest tapcafes. When Bodhi was old enough she brought him along and candle flames shone on her through colored glass. She used to say poems were only meant to live a short time, in the listener’s memory. Even if they didn’t remember the words, just the way they felt.





	

“Baze, tell me. All of it? The whole city?” 

In the silence Bodhi looks up and finds Baze hollow-eyed with grief. The sight distracts Bodhi from his own sorrows--which, if he’s honest, are starting to feel like self pity. If the occupation of Jedha, the sack of the temple, could rob Baze of his faith, what would this do? What is left to take from him?

Chirrut presses, “ _Tell_ me.” 

“All of it,” says Baze, and Chirrut’s posture shifts in a way Bodhi knows well, when a little bit of hope, the thing keeping his head high, gets snuffed out. 

Bodhi yanks off his goggles, scrubs at his face. He is not a talker even in the best circumstances, and the past few days have him just about convinced to never open his mouth again, but there are times when words boil over and he can’t stop them. Times that he babbles, overshares, gets ahead of himself. 

This is not one of those times. As he takes a breath, the words present themselves in an orderly and measured way. He could be reading a preflight checklist. 

“The city disappeared,” he says, “and a new one took its place.” 

Baze turns his intimidating stare on Bodhi, and Chirrut angles his ear toward him.

“It was made of flame, and stone, and dust. The towers rose, faster than hands can build, higher than the temple, through the bowl of sky. The ground peeled back like the rind of a fruit. Like the city’s walls were expanding outward, like ribs, like a deep breath. The ground turned back on itself and convulsed.” 

The words are spent from wherever they came. Bodhi does not feel cleansed. 

“An amateur poet,” Baze mutters when Bodhi does not continue. 

Bodhi shakes his head. “My mother was.” She never published, but she used to read in the smallest, dimmest tapcafes. When Bodhi was old enough she brought him along and candle flames shone on her through colored glass. She used to say poems were only meant to live a short time, in the listener’s memory. Even if they didn’t remember the words, just the way they felt. 

The new city will fall, too. A thousand years the old one stood, but the new will last less than a day. Bodhi covers his face. His weeping is as silent as his last glimpse of the city. 

A hand closes on his wrist, stronger than binders. Bodhi looks up at Chirrut. “What we do now,” says the guardian, “we do for Jedha.” 

Bodhi nods, catches himself, clears his throat. “And so no one else…” Fresh tears stop him. 

Baze says, “No one else.” 

The little ship, with its cargo of Jedha’s last survivors, flies on. 


End file.
